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Not to the degree that boxers or kickboxers tend to shadowbox, but I don't think it's all that unusual for karateka to engage in similar practices. I see sport karateka do it all the time (mostly because they never hit anything for real, anyway), using their competition sparring techniques. With...

Your spine isn't something to be nonchalant about. I have several bulged disks, and I still train, but honestly, I'm in real bad pain for DAYS if I get taken down once or twice in training. Competitive fighting would be out of the question, at this point--competition is nowhere near as important...

Freak accidents don't have to be someone's "fault."

We have the Pinan series of kata as a standard part of our curriculum. Your statement of "we train these with resistance from multiple fighters," is a bit odd, to me, because what I usually envision when someone says something like that is not real resistance training. We do definitely break the...

As a member of the Shorinkan, with friends in every branch of Shorin-Ryu, I find this to be an interesting evaluation. The official Shorinkan curriculum is actually very limited--19 kata and 28 yakusoku, and then you can teach whatever else you want, essentially--so there is a very broad...

"Shorin-Ryu" is not a universal, cohesive style with a singular method of sparring, the way Kyokushin tends to be. It's MUCH broader, containing 4 main sub-types, and countless organizations that all do things differently, which contain even more countless schools that do things differently. The...

Funakoshi said "karate ni sente nashi," which is generally translated as "there is no first strike in karate," but this was expanded upon, by himself and others, to explain that he meant that karateka should not go out starting fights. That does not mean you shouldn't attack first, under the...

I can't say that it's necessarily style-wide, but in my experience, a lot of Matsubayashi-Ryu schools don't spar. A lot of Shorin-Ryu schools, more broadly, don't spar, really--for a lot of Okinawan styles, sparring just isn't really seen as that important, because they are so heavily invested...

Then I would say it is even further from a Rosetta Stone--that goes back to something like Seisan, or perhaps Sanchin, since there are extant examples of it in styles outside of Okinawa

Our school tests people for rank, but only allows them to test if we have already determined that they are ready, and they are, essentially, always being evaluated. Every time our students are in class, we get to see how well they perform, how well they pick up new material, whether they...

Really depends what you're using the movements for--the further your limbs get from your body, the less strength and stability they have. For striking, that doesn't matter so much. For grappling methods, though...

Coming from the Okinawan karate perspective, I don't personally like the degree to which Kyokushin kata movements are exaggerated--as I see it, most of the movements in Okinawan kata are already somewhat exaggerated, so it just seems unnecessary, and starts to be less effective for some of the...

Itosu Passai is certainly popular among Shuri-Te styles, but I don't know that I would call it a "Rosetta Stone" of karate. For one thing, it isn't even the most common kata among Shuri-Te styles--that would be Naihanchi. Beyond that, it isn't really found outside of Shuri-Te styles, so it...

A single, universal culture? Not really, aside from what was borrowed from Okinawa/Japan, such as wearing keikogi, using Japanese terminology, bowing, practicing kata, etc., but even those aren't universal in all karate styles/dojo. Of course, that isn't terribly surprising--humans are a tribal...

Throughout this thread, we see you essentially attempting argumentum ad nauseum, while using a lot of false equivalence, appeals to ignorance, and circular reasoning to support a mind projection fallacy, of sorts, which I find odd, given that you don't train in martial arts--which is merely an...

It's hard to get people to say they know of someone when you give nothing but a name and no real reason for people to answer. I can say that I haven't heard of him, before now, but that's not terribly surprising--he appears to teach Shotokan, and I don't keep up with the Japanese karate folks...

Kyokushin/Enshin/Seido/etc. is a bit of a different beast, yes, because Oyama integrated the irikumi-go method of sparring from Goju-Ryu, which brought the range a bit closer and, of course, included hard contact. It still doesn't represent the older methods of karate, though, and was still...

Going back to the way karate used to be pressure tested--effectively hard sparring with joint locks, chokes, and takedowns, but done from a "sticky hands" type of context, where contact must be maintained with the opponent at all times so that you are forced to use close range techniques. It's...

Personally, I don't much care for Karate Combat, but I'm also looking at things from a particular point of view, which I can admit is somewhat limiting. All of the competition circuits for karate are based on the approach to karate that was developed by Funakoshi Gigo and his ilk in the mid 20th...

From one of Funakoshi's books: From one of his older books: And one I took some years ago to have a clearer example:

I got my start in Shuri-Ryu, and I have to give it credit for that. I still have a number of friends who train in it, and they are dedicated, hard-training martial artists. As for the style, itself, and Trias, there is certainly a lot of controversy, and to be perfectly honest, there should...

I tend to use it mostly like the last example in Lionel's video, with the crossing arm trapping the opponent's arms as the "blocking" arm drives into their neck, or for limb control, as I show here: There are, of course, other ways to use it, but those are my go-to applications. As has been...

While I don't practice a Chinese martial art, we do have a variety of drills that are similar to chi-sau, and I would argue that it does work in fighting--it just doesn't look like what you're looking for. Having a fight with any type of "sticky hands" drill requires both fighters to agree to...

Shotokan evolved from Shorin-Ryu, essentially, so you will find a lot of similarities. The differences generally tend to be that the stances are shorter/higher in Shorin-Ryu, and things are done in a more relaxed fashion.

My personal preference, for an all-around heavy bag, is a 6ft bag of at least 120lbs, but preferably heavier, which is packed with cloth or rubber fill and has no sandbags for extra weight. Of course, it has to be well made, so it doesn't just fall apart on you. I also suggest hanging it on a...

I'm in full agreement with the general consensus--the only "anti-grappling" is grappling. You don't have to become a world-class BJJ competitor, you just need to learn (and train with resistance fairly regularly) some basic positional and submission escapes, with the intention of getting back to...

For a three day event, that is exorbitant. When I put on three day events like that, they are $150-$250, depending on the instructors. For that price, I would expect a week or more of training.

It's a general term for Okinawan martial arts, but as for specific styles, you will often find students of Nakamura Shigeru calling their methods "Okinawa Kenpo" or "Ryukyu Kenpo," with various spellings. Oyata Seiyu Sensei was certainly one of these, but others call their arts by this name, as...

As I said, the history of Shuri-Ryu is relatively controversial. Since I wasn't there, and there is so much conflicting information, I can't tell you with absolute certainty where anything came from in the style. Trias traveled to Japan relatively often, and asked people from other styles to...

Thanks, everyone! As I mentioned, I was already of the opinion that the kata was probably made-up by Trias, and had no real connection to Hsing-I/Xingyi, but I appreciate the supporting commentary. That would be fun! You're also welcome to visit our dojo and work with a little Shorin-Ryu :)